


only then i am human, only then i am clean

by JamlessGenius



Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angel Wings, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kim Daehyun (Lost In Translation - Webcomic)-Centric, Muteness, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Running Away, Self-Hatred, Survivor Guilt, Whump, Wingfic, lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25981984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamlessGenius/pseuds/JamlessGenius
Summary: wings - brilliant, beautiful wings - exploded from his hyung’s back.daehyun hadn’t seen him since.
Relationships: Ahn Jaewon | Wyld & Kim Daehyun
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	only then i am human, only then i am clean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i_was_human](https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_was_human/gifts).



> congratulations on your fic week, whump queen!

jaewon hung on a crucifix for not their sins but for their victories. 

he bled on the altar of their successes.

wordlessly.

  
daehyun understood it well, especially now after he’d failed his own voice. 

everything jaewon said and did was lost in translation to those who couldn’t read him. he painted himself well and hid the wrongs. still, the ones who learned to read him could see past like glass.

he was so transparent, but so very not, amid all the lies and masks weighting him down and skinning him alive. 

daehyun learned and couldn’t unsee, knowledge is only spread, like destruction. you can rebuild and try to forget but it will never be the same.

this knowledge was a destruction, in itself.

he learned and his knowledge burned as he stayed silent. 

it burned, but it always did. a pyre in which he burned the notion that he’d ever been a good person. 

the flames grew as he stayed silent. they consumed, licking up and taking apart him from the inside. his own silence was a sickness. it _devoured_ him and he kept his mouth shut.

he could clearly handle the guilt.

because he was still silent. 

he was silent, as he always was when things went sour, as the sheep of the flock gathered nails and built a death for jaewon. as they drowned him in their own hatred for a distorted image. they built his ruin and somehow that worked. 

he was silent as they succeeded in their building. and for that, jaewon jumped from one.

he was silent as jaewon played a marionette even when the strings began to strangle him, began to make him bleed.

he was silent, but he saw. and that-

he reassured himself that it was more than the others and that meant something. but what was it all for, then?

(he knew, _he knew_ , that it was for them and they were ungrateful and undeserving and never fully understanding. but he knew that it wasn’t okay and he was _still so incriminatingly_ _ silent.) _

the others were so blinded in what they thought was a betrayal by the one they’d betrayed. he knew and they didn’t and that alone set them worlds apart. 

it hurt.

it-

he had no right to claim that. he had no right to say he was hurting. 

not anymore.

not when he’d ignored a cry of pain. ignored many cries.

still, life continued its path, never staying static. and daehyun wished for just a moment that it could. that life could be so static and he could have all the gaps in time to right his own wrongs. 

because he’d failed, this time.  
he’d failed, _again_. 

he’d made the wrong choice and the consequences were heavy. so heavy, so heavy that it dragged him down and down to _burn and suffer_ retribution in his own little hell.

he sat on a rooftop, again, after so many months a and the world moved on and he didn’t- 

he’d been too complacent. he’d thought that if he knew it could be enough. 

it was _never_ enough. and he’d known it from the start.

he’d never forget that day, a day long after the kindness and joy had begun their steady leak from jaewon.

a day long after the other two saw jaewon as an afterthought, and pretended they’d leapt over the distances for cameras. long after their rift became a ravine became a canyon became an ocean and then they were miles and miles apart. it was long, long after the hope had left the situation too.

daehyun wondered if it was because he’d opened pandora’s box and left it long enough for hope to escape too. he wondered if it was his fault. 

it certainly was on _that day_ , when he opened his mouth and had to discover at the worst moment that his words no longer held strength.

he had found jaewon standing on the rooftop, his feet dangling over the ledge. 

the night’s wind tousled jaewon’s cherry strands. and against the darkness and the paleness of jaewon’s skin, the color was so startlingly fake.

daehyun was there because he had found the note first. he ran up staircases and his breath was in puffs and everything burned, but what burned was ashes of pyres long since built and there was nothing to burn. he’d run because he couldn’t be too late. 

never again.

never again would he be too late, he’d promised himself.

(he knew, that it was stupid to say.

_he knew_ , that the time had long since passed. daehyun was far too late and grasping for time that was no longer there, clawing at ashes and hoping for the support of wood that _he_ had burned.)

his hyung, eyes so dead, smile so false, sat on the ledge, eyes trained on the starless sky.

no.

no-

he opened his mouth, breaking his silence.

“ _HYUNG! PLEASE! DON’T!”_

jaewon didn’t even turn to look, his words had lost their weight when he’d stored them and never used them.

instead, he 

smiled 

at 

the 

sky 

and 

fell

down

down

down

until

he

wasn’t 

falling

anymore

wings - _brilliant, beautiful wings_ \- exploded from his hyung’s back.

his fall became his rise, and with a shaky laugh, jaewon flew up, and up, until he disappeared into the sky. daehyun didn’t stop him.

he couldn’t stop him.

and he knew he shouldn’t stop him. he’s lost that right a long time ago.

daehyun hasn’t seen him since. 

and in jaewon‘s disappearance, a piece of himself ran away too. he’d become the shell, the dead one walking, among their shrunken group.

he didn’t talk when the police came and took the note from his shaking hands. not even when they said he wasn’t dead but confirmed missing. when they said they couldn’t find a body.

he didn’t talk when the company put their group on indefinite hiatus and the other members did solo or unit work until he could rejoin. until jaewon would return and the world’s punching bag could return and it hadn’t yet sunk in for everyone else that they wouldn’t. 

he didn’t talk when therapists tried to ask him to open his mouth and utter a word or at least type or write but-

but what was the point in it all?

words had done this, dragged a beautiful, vibrant human being to snuff out his own flame. snuff, what a funny way to say that jaewon had tried to disappear and  _ succeeded_.

he’d- 

_he’d succeeded._

he wasn’t dead, but he was  _ gone _ and chances were they’d never get him back. 

where was he now? daehyun wondered that on the daily.

where was jaewon with his impossible wings and impossible second chance that he’d earned because he’d suffered through it all and he’d never deserved it and there was benevolence that humans couldn’t give and-

and- 

and daehyun let punishment fall on him, the one who had known and still stood among the sinners by standing idly by.

he lost his will, which had never been strong. his will and his words and his sounds. his screams were silent, too. 

words and voices and speaking up had ruined jaewon and he’d stayed silent through it all. he was no better than who he’d been to minyoung.

he was a traitor, a traitor over and over again.

jesus fell and rose as judas turned his head, 

and then he’d killed himself in his shame.

would that make it better? would his death fix some of the injustice he’d helped create? daehyun wondered that for not the first time as he walked the rooftop of the building and mused on if he should make it the last time.

  
they’d crucified jaewon in life and death, would his end be any different?

a perverted (or maybe a pure, he was no longer sure which was which) part of him hoped he wouldn’t. he didn’t deserve it. he was the greatest sinner of all the sinners who hurt jaewon because he’d hurt him in knowing and still being a bystander.

his eyes drifted to white clouds. jaewon had known and not cared. petty mortal cruelties no longer touched him, wherever he was.

something joined him in his quiet contemplations.

a white feather

he raised it to the clouds jaewon had disappeared into.

a white flag to say he’d face the retribution he deserved. he’d faced it but he hadn’t faced it enough.

it would never be enough. he’d never done enough when it had mattered, in the end.

a second white feather drifted to the ground and he looked up to see an angel. the angel that had once protected them.

rosy hair and plush lips that seemed almost painted onto his face. his eyes held life again.

perhaps it was fair, that if he’d given them so much, they should suffer in silence when he gained it all back.

a penance, of sorts. daehyun had not fully atoned, not fixed what was right because it was too late-

it was always too late. and now, even if he had no right, tears crawled over his skin.

“oh, oh, daehyun,” jaewon reached out a hand, wings shining so purely in the sunlight. pure and cleansed of what never should’ve afflicted them. 

he was not as pure or as kind. he’d been cruel in his hopes at turning his face and maintaining the equilibrium he’d fooled himself into believing existed. but still, he stepped forward. 

he took his hand. 

and let out a sound.

a quiet one,

a sob, really

and yet,

_and_ _yet_ ,

the world’s weight fell from his shoulders. the noose loosened and he breathed again.

black wings bloomed from his back. they were not pure white, a picture of innocence, but they were beautiful and pure in their own way.

and maybe that was okay.

“i’m sorry,” he murmured against his hyungs neck as he captured him in a hug, tears cascading down his cheeks. 

jaewon only smiled, and they ran away together.

maybe, just maybe, the one judging him for his sin had been him.

maybe, just maybe, he was already forgiven.

maybe, just maybe, he remove his sackcloth and ashes and begin again.

humanity sinned in cycles, maybe it was time for his to continue. he could not lament forever.

he could, certainly, but not now, when jaewon held his hand and they soared and his falling stopped.

how long? how long had they been falling for? 

how long? how long had they been flying for?

long enough, he knew

he knew, with no measurements of time or scales of guilt, that they’d fallen and fallen for long enough. daehyun had fallen when jaewon jumped and fell until he stopped. jaewon had been falling for long before until he learned to fly.

words, unbidden, formed pearls on his tongue, for the first time in so, so long.

but all he needed to say was to let out peals of laughter. jaewon joined them as they soared and laughed and their noise was their flight.

he expected endings to be running into the sunset, not soaring into the clouds. he might like this ending much better. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hozier’s “Take Me To Church”
> 
> edited 8/23


End file.
